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A DISCOURSE 



ASSASSINATION OF 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD, 



DELIVEIJED IN THE SOUTH CHURCH, 



SALEM, MASS., 



,fo 



JULY 10, 1881 



BY REV, EDWARD S, ATWOOD, PASTOR. 




SALEM, MASS.: • 

OBSERVEB STEAM PRI^ftlNG ESTABLISHMENT, 

1881. 



r\ 



SERMON. 



"In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity 
consider: God also hath set the one over a<j;ainst the other." — Eccle- 
siastes vii., 14. 

Some hundreds of miles to the southward, in a 
shaded and silent room, lies the President of the 
United States, with death on one side of the bed 
and life on the other, quarrelling as to which shall 
have him. It is a time and place of infinite issues 
to him personall3^ On the one hand, there is the 
possibility of a grave dug for him in the maturity 
of manhood, on whose headstone it will be no 
lying epitaph to write, " Well done, good and 
faithful servant !"; on the other hand, there is the 
possibility of many illustrious years to come, with 
increase of power and fame, the ruddy bud of 
promise opened into imperial blossom. It is still 
more a time and place of infinite issues to us as a 
people. The vast importance of this crisis no 
man can measure. The outcome of this sudden 
arrest, as the ship of state strikes on this un- 
mapped rock, no prophet can foretell; God only 
knows. The report of the assassin's pistol, we 
are told, was loud and startling, but its sound 
was utter silence, compared with the resonance of 
events that inevitably succeed the attempted mur- 
der-stroke. In the days of prosperity we have 



"bet'u jnvriir* without stint: in the day of adver- 
sity that is upon us. it is imperative that we 
should sit down in its shadows and " consider." 

It seems to me im})ortant that men should fas- 
ten their thou<ihts, first, on the truth which stands 
last in thr text: i)rosi)erity and adversity, God 
hath set the one over against the other. It is not 
a hlundering. lawless world, this world in which 
we live. History is not a game of chance, depen- 
dent ui)on the shuffling of the cards and the 
throw of the dice. An infinite somehochj stands 
back of all its events and determines their occur- 
rence. Human life and fortune to ns is a fabric 
of tangled web, but there is one who knows all, 
one who sees the end from the beginning, and 
works out his matchless pattern according to the 
counsels of his own will. The nation, all too 
careless of this truth in the halcyon days in which 
it seemed to be drifting into prosperity on the 
crest of a tidal wave, or by sheer force of gravita- 
tion, has met with a sharp arraignment of its idle 
and empty philosophy, and has waked np to the 
fact that there is a God in the heavens. The 
millions who have been crushed to their knees in 
])rayer by the sudden calamity; the secular journals 
which have substituted devout petitions for political 
criticisms; the great heart of the people lifted heav- 
enward in asking, not assertion, as nevei- before; 
these all are witness that the shadowy, sleepy ad- 
mission that the Lord reigns, has snddenlj- taken 
on body and life. God is greatly more real to this 
peoi)le than a week ago. Our infinite helplessness, 



his infinile helpfulness, how mneh we have learned 
about these things within the last seven days- 
Col. Ingersoll walks up and down the corridoi-s of 
the White House, but no faintest whisper of his 
lucrative blaspheni}' disturbs the profound atmos- 
phere of prayer in the Executive Mansion. The 
sad, sore heart of the nation cries out, "'• Woe are 
we if there be not a, God." Xo conclusions of 
j^hilosophy, no ntterance of the schools, no assent 
of science, could so have reinvigorated into stal- 
wartness the waning popular faith in the gi-eat 
Over Ruler, as the disaster that has forced us ciU 
to see that without God we have no hope in the 
world. As a people and as individuals, we are 
summoned to make that truth more closely and 
abidingly our own. Some thin flame of convic- 
tion, kindled by the heat of our necessities, flick- 
ering a moment and then gone out, is not enough. 
AVe must enthrone in our souls as the sovereign 
fact, that God is, and God reigns. All pei-ma- 
nent righteousness depends upon that. The chil- 
dren of Israel were a vagrant and self-pleasing 
host till they stood whej-e Sinai's rugged steeps 
shot up from the desolateness of the desert, and 
in the lightning that blazed, and the thunder that 
crashed, and the great voice like a trumpet that 
uttered itself in the cloudy sunnnit, they recog- 
nized that God Avas making laws for them — laws 
sovereign, irreversible, inexorable. Our Sinai has 
been unveiled before us, this week, and not for the 
first time either. "We have had emphasized the 
fact that God reigns, and that the methods of His 



6 

will tcnnsceiKl the theories of statesmanship and 
override the phntings of politicians, and that 
Avhatevei- allegiance we think we owe to our 
party, or our nation, our loyalty is due first and 
most of all to Him who setteth np one, and put- 
teth down another. Ko patriotism is complete 
that does not compact itself around that confes- 
sion. Xo private character is pure and sound and 
good, that does not have ohedlence to God as its 
core and centre. Wranglers in Congress and 
political speakers on the platform have had too 
nmch to say about pai'ty and constitution, and too 
little about Jehovah. It is Avell for us that the 
great deeps of our unconcern and forgetfulness 
ha^•e been broken np, even though the life blood 
from the veins of the great President has been 
selected as messenger to ai'ticulate the everlasting 
truth, '• I aui the Lord, that is my name, and my 
glory will 1 not give to another." We have boasted 
that we Avere a prosperous ])eople, a progressive 
jjcople, a law-abiding people; but a single pistol 
shot fills the land with alarm and dismay, and 
wi-enches us away from our trust in Presidents 
and Cabinets, who turn out to be men like our- 
selves, the creatures of yesterday and the dust of 
to-morroAV. Xational I'ighteousness is something 
more than loyalty to our leaders and our constitu- 
tion. It comes, and comes to stay, and be a 
reality only as it comes through submission and 
service offered to llim who is more than earthly 
constitutions and leaders. It will not be of too 
great pi'ice, this punctuation point of blood, in 



the history we are writing, if in its pause we dis- 
cover the Great White Throne, and Him who sits 
upon it. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and 
so discover it and Him, that we bow in absohite 
allegiance to the Divine rule and Kuler. 

" In the day of adversity, consider.'' Few cen- 
turies and nations have been in more need of that 
injunction than our own. The advance of civiliza- 
tion in older lands has been like the rise of the 
tide, slow and stately ; the progress of American 
civilization has been the swift, noisy, turbid flow 
of a torrent swollen by spring rains, liemember 
we have but little more than a centurj- of national 
history behind us, and yet in elements of vitality, 
available force, and splendor of accomplishment, 
we stand abreast with nations that have had cycles 
for their growth. It is true that, as latest born of 
peoples, we are heirs of the wisdom of the past, 
warned by its mistakes and helped by its recorded 
experiments. But this is not the sufficient expla- 
nation of our rapid advance. They tell us that, 
on the slopes of Vesuvius, grass and flowers push 
into wonderful luxuriance, for, while sunnner heat 
rains down upon them from the azure concave of 
the Mediterranean sky, another summer stirs be- 
neath them in the hot heart of the volcano. 
Amei-ica has had the external quickening of the 
world's experiments; it has had also the internal 
impulse of its own feverish and restless blood. 
In every department of our varied life, in the 
home, the school, the college, in business, in liter- 
ature, in art, in science, there is the same impetii- 



8 

ous luistc. Tlu' outcome of all this is marvellous 
ciiti'iprix-, but it is not unmixed gain. Even in 
material matters, panic treads close on the heels 
of prosperity, and what is far worse, in our rash 
ventnresomeness, some of the best and truest 
things ai'c- trodden out of sight as grass and grain 
nvv tranii)led under foot by the rush of a victo- 
I'ions army. The strict moralities of business, 
that make it an orderly attempt to adjust the bal- 
ance between want and sui)ply, are often over- 
looki-d. and trade l)ecomes a greedy scramble of 
each one Tor himself Statesmanship is left 
luistudied in the endeavor to gratify political 
ambition. Even religion tries to reach its desired 
results by short cuts and cross roads. The 
chronic crime of the American people is their 
t//oti[///tbssness. AVe are re-enacting, in less 
intense but ([uite as mischievous fashion, the folh^ 
of Trance, under Louis XVI. We plan for to- 
da}- and to-morrow, as though day after to-mor- 
I'ow would never come — and day after to-morrow 
is the thing of most importance. So, much is 
projected in haste that has to be abandoned; so, 
luiich is done that were better undone; so, much 
time is spent in stopping ugly leaks, made by 
incautious haste, that were better spent in minding 
the helm and trimming the sails, that anything, 
coiiK; in what shape it may, that forces the nation 
to stop and consider, is so far a blessing. Energy 
is an excellency, and enthusiasm is to be welcomed 
in this lazy world; but there must be tlwughtful- 
vt'ss to well direct both enthusiasm and energy, or 



9 

the better part of their force is wasted. The 
Merrimac, fed by a myriad streams from the 
shaggy mountains in the far north, comes south- 
ward brawling noisily in its shallowness, but 
Manchester and Lawrence and Lowell build their 
blockades of arrest across its current, till it grows 
still and deep — and then it puts its shoulder to 
the wheel of labor, and turns the thousands of 
humming spindles, and drives the shuttles that 
weave the web of prosperity for great cities. 
National fire and force need the curb and direc- 
tion of wise consideration, and even adversity 
may cause an arrest of thoughtlessness, from 
which large good may come. 

If now, in an hour of troubled expectancy and 
anxious waiting, we stop and consider, what facts 
unknown, or feebly recognized before, impress 
themselves upon oui* thought ? 

First of all, I think, is the worth of Christian 
character. In the loose talk of ihe street and the 
flippant utterances of the platfoi-m, it has not been 
credited with a high market value. It was well 
enough to be 2)ious if one had a fancy for that 
sort of a thing, but after all there was a suspicion 
of unmanliness attaching to it. Young men look- 
ing about for their ideals for which to strive, 
selected eminent politicians, or successful business 
men, or famous scientists as their models. The 
matter of piety did not enter into their calcula- 
tions. But look yonder into the President's sick 
room, and listen to the utterances that swarm in 
on the white wings of the newspapers from all 
2 



10 

parts of the lan<l. Bend your ear to that electric 
Avire stretching a thousand leagues under the sea, 
and catch the words that are passing through it. 
Wliat is the central chord around which all the 
haiinnnies are ranged ? The Christian character, 
courage and faith of the sufferer. It is not that 
he is a statesman. There may be others who are 
his peers if not his superiors in that. It is not 
that he is eloquent. We have no lack of brilliant 
orators. It is not merely that he is President. 
There have been others in that high office for 
whom far fewer tears would have been shed. It 
is the man. brave but not defiant, submissive but 
not cowai-dly, so anxious to live that he would be 
willing to have a limb cut piece by piece from his 
body if so he might recover, and yet calmly say- 
in<'-, "(rod's will be done;" it is the 7nan, that 
man, tliat kind of a man, whose calamity is the 
sorrow of all hearts. I doubt if all the pulpits of 
America, for the last twelve months, have so 
ennobled Christian character in the popular esti- 
mate, as that single sufferer in the silence of his 
sick i-oom. It will l)e w^ell for the young men of 
America, pondering ])lans of life and calculating 
the chances of success, to tui'u their faces toward 
that room. Keligiou in the abstract, as preached 
ill sermons, has been pilloried in the lecture room, 
and siuH'rt'd at in the laboratory, and ignored in 
\\\v market place and on the sidewalk; but religion 
as pci'soniiied in the head of the Great Kepublic, 
struck down in the early morning of his official 
greatness, without a moment's warning, and yet 



11 

calm, self poised, trusting in the Infinite "Wisdom 
and Love — that religion is manifestly something 
so real, so controlling, so sublime, that the boldest 
skeptic dares not shoot the arrows of criticism 
towards it. I say it reverently, but I believe it is 
true, that never since the dying Christ so bore 
himself upon the cross that the heathen centurion 
confessed " truly this was the Son of God," 
never has any man had oi)p()rtunity given him to 
bear such Avorld-wide witness to the truth of 
I'cligion, as has been given to the head of this 
nation. And he has not been found wanting. In 
the sight of all the nations he has })orne testimony 
to the power of the truth as it is in Jesus, and 
henceforth the small critics who evolve unbelief 
out of the shallowness of their own brains, will 
have this new evidence to refute. Let the nation 
see to it that in the future it do not forget, what 
in this hour of consideration it cannot ovei'look, 
that religion, the religion of the Gospel, is a 
reality, supreme and satisfying. 

Still further, in this hour of thought we have 
got a new idea of the dejxndence which may safely 
he placed upoti the people. Whatever may be true 
of other nations, the American Republic, though 
noisy and quarrelsome on the surface, is, at heart, 
as the heart of one man. We have our political 
differences and party names, and cliques within 
the party, but for all that are one. Your chemical 
solution is a ferment of unassimilating substances, 
but thrust into it a I'od and all differences har- 
monize in crystallization about it. Thrust into 



12 

till' wraii.n-le of Ainerican politics, so liot and 
>liiill-v(.ictMl sometimes, a great emergency like 
that uhieh is upon ns, and there is an instant 
crvstallization of factions. We think better of 
humanity, or ought to, than we did a week ago. 
li(.\\ magnificent the out])urst of sympathy from 
all <|uarters, the South equally with the North 
tr\ing to find words expressive enough to voice 
its sori'ows and its hopes! The universal tender- 
ness has ntteri'd itself from all strata of society, 
aud tlie l)nrd('U of grief and the thrill of returning 
coufldenee has been felt by the young as well as 
the old. "Mikky,-' was the first greeting of a 
little boy to his playmate, as he sallied out in the 
street yonder at daylight on Monday last, wakened 
by the uproar of the nation's holiday, " Mikky, 
he is alive yet." We have our differences of relig- 
ious creed, our bitter antagonisms of party; but, 
even seem to touch the integrity of the nation's 
life, and there is but one party and one creed. 
Scientists tell us that between the ultimate atoms 
of the most solid substance there is a film of sep- 
ai'ating atmosphere, but the cohesion is none the 
less perfect for all that. So in our government of 
the people by the people. Men have their separate- 
ness of ideas, but it does not impair their unity of 
])ur])ose. The i)eople are to be trusted. Like 
childrL'U, iu idle times they have their quarrelsome 
moods; but let the stress of emergency come and 
they are granite. And how much moi'c than 
American, how human this cohesion of brother- 
hood has been proved to be! The nations have 



13 

their representatives at each other's courts, with 
the jugglery of diplomacy or the sword thrust of 
threats, each guarding jealously its own rights; 
but a sorrow comes upon one, and all the rest at 
once turn comforters. Imperial England, crafty 
Germany, autocratic Russia, volatile France, con- 
tinental empires, far off Japan, land of the sun 
I'ising, how from each and all the w^ords of sym- 
pathy come singing along the wire over the land 
and under the sea, till that sick chamber at Wash- 
ington seems the focus of the world's whispering 
gallery, where eveiy nation is heard lamenting and 
comforting. The old dream of the brotherhood of 
men marches to its fulfilment. The truth that 
God has made of one blood all nations, is reaf- 
firmed — and that unity asserts itself more and 
more strongly. It is but a gtep further to that 
unity in Christ, which is stronger than oneness of 
blood; and in this splendid witness to the lesser 
truth lies the promise in the near future of the 
greater and more glorious. 

And certainly, while we consider, one other fact 
grows plain — the loeak spot of the Republic, where, 
if anywhere, it is likely to snap when the strain 
comes — the hungry greed for office, wiiich curses 
all classes of society, and the political lie that " to 
the victors helong the spoils." It is time to affirm 
and reaffirm, and grave with a pen of iron in the 
rock forever, that no man has a right to demand 
position on account of his party affiliations. He 
may make himself fit for office by the breadth of 
his patriotism; he may earu ii, title to considera- 



14 

tion 1)V services rendered to the whole land; hut 
even then, it is not for him to seek the place, bnt 
to wait nntil the place seeks him. This oi-ganized 
svsteni of hego-ing and bribing, which is snch an 
immense factor in American politics, is a devil 
tliat needs to be cast out. The mischief is every- 
where. AVard room politicians, whose qualifica- 
tions are sui'[)las of brass and lack of brains, 
engineer city and town elections in their own 
interest and iancy they are great men. Other 
crujues manipulate states, and still others seem to 
think that the nation exists for their benefit, and 
snivel and stamp like angry boys if they can not 
have their way. The " spoils system" has w'eak- 
ened every party, continually given us iintit men 
for ofhcials, and now has shot the President. It 
is more than a nuisance to be abated, it is an 
assassin to be gibbetted. In this hour of adver- 
sity the people will consider to little purpose if 
they do not insist on instant and utter reform in 
this matter. There should be wide room for 
honoi-able ambition, there should not be an inch of 
standing ])lace for selfish political greed. Let the 
nation make short work with the beggars and 
liar[)ies that l)lock u]) the offices and lobbies of the 
capital, the washed and the unwashed alike offer- 
ing their |)atriotic services " for a consideration." 
A\'e lia\e imperative occasion for beginning a 
reform which we ought to have begun long ago 
— a refoi-m not tentative, timid, apologetic, as 
though ashamed or afraid of itself, but a reform, 
clear-voiced, heavy-handed, radical through and 



15 

through. Make it a fact, if not a law, that to ask 
for an office is the siu'e way not to get it; stamp 
lobbying as disreputable as swindling; and the 
land will be clear of a curse, that rots inward like 
a cancer, and whose touch of pain and fever has 
reached even the heart of the nation. 

What is to be the outcoiue of the calamity to 
him who is the chief sutferer, no man can tell; 
but the morniug light of hope, kindled along the 
horizon where all was black night a week ago, 
streauis higher and higher towards the zenith. If 
the President live, who can doubt that it w^ill ])e 
with chastened j)urj)()ses, larger faithfulness, more 
thoi'ough devotion to (lod. There are more 
things to be learned in that sick room than in the 
cabinet council, things finer, better worth knowing, 
than any trick of statesmanship. Out of the 
schooling of these slow-moving, anxious hours, 
there may come grace to rule that will make the 
disaster a blessiu«- to us, and the crowdino- mil- 
lions of the future. God grant that so it may be! 
is the prayer of all our hearts. But if — alas, that 
such an if is possible — but if that which seems to 
ns best is not best, and so may not be; if the 
great President's work is done, and the weak fin- 
gers grow weaker still till the sceptre of authority 
drops from their powerless grasp, and we find our- 
selves facing an unwelcome future full of compli- 
cations, about whose unsnarling we have no greater 
certainty than anxious surmise, still we may be of 
good courage. The people live, though the 
President dies; on them the burden rests always 



IG 



and they have learned how to bear it. While they 
live and are true to their high mission " the gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
ple, will not perish from the face of the earth." 
Yes, more than that, though there be possible days 
before us of doubt and trouble, when the cry 
of the nation is 

*' Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still!" 

Yet a mightier than the President will still live 
and reign. 

"And behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadows, 
Keeping watch above his own." 



5Li0l)t on tbe ffilauU. 



A DISCOURSE 



DEATH OF 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD, 



DELIVEEED IN THE SOUTH CHURCH, 



SALEM, MASS. 



SEPTEMBER 25, 1881. 



BY REV. EDWARD S. ATWOOD. PASTOR. 



SALEM, MASS. : 

OBSERVER STEAM PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 

1881. 



r' 



SERMON. 



" Clouds and darkness are round about liim ; righteousness and 
judgment are the habitation of his throne. — Psalm xcvii., 2. 

For the second time in our national history, the 
American people assemble to-day in their houses 
of worshij), under circumstances of special and 
momentous interest. The President is dead, and 
the long agony of suspense is over. The weeks of 
weary waiting during which the telegraph and the 
newspaper made every man a watcher by the bed- 
side of the chief magistrate are ended. The 
voice of prayer that burdened the air with its im- 
portunity for the sufferer's life is hushed. The 
bulletins, whose varying messages of hope and 
fear stirred such conflicting feelings in the breasts 
of thousands, no longer fan the courage or depress 
the hearts of the people. The physicians are dis- 
charged from their faithful and tender ministry of 
help. The trains are no longer burdened with a 
nation's glad contribution of fancied appliances of 
relief. The sentries have been dismissed from 
their weary vigil about White House and seaside 
cottage. All human endeavor has been frustrated. 
The President is dead, and the world sits in 
mourning beside his grave. 

The blow has cut sharply and struck deeply. 



20 

Could we lift to-day the horizon that limits our 
outlook, and make this church the high summit of 
national prospect what strange and touching 
sights would Hash before our vision. The whole 
land is in the garb of moui-ning. The folds 
of blended sable and white hang in clouds from 
the cabin, the shop, the factory, the halls of jus- 
tice, the council rooms of municipalities, the ex- 
change. The sanctuaries of worship are draped 
with the emblems of sorrow. From every flag 
staff the national ensign droops at half mast, 
frino-ed with blackness. In the forests of Maine 
the cry of lamentation is heard above the sough 
of the winds through the pines, and the wailing 
rolls on and on the breadth of the continent, and 
adds its minor chord to the music of the waves 
that harp along the placid shores of the Pacific. 
Fifty millions of people plunged into common 
sorrow lift up their tear-stained faces to God, 
compelled to say " clouds and darkness are round 
about him"; not yet quite ready to say, "right- 
eousness and judgment are the habitation of his 
throne." 

Whatever strictures may be made upon the 
unbelief of the times, it is beyond question that 
the conviction that thei-e is a God, is a fundamen- 
tal article in the faith of the American people. 
The events of the last few weeks sufficiently evi- 
dence it. The assembling of whole Common- 
wealths for prayer — the petitions that have gone 
up from thousands of churches and family altars, 
and secret places of communion with God, are 



I 



21 

blessed and irrefutable witness to the fact that the 
nation believes in a great over-ruling Father and 
Friend. Even our calamity will not cause us to 
lose faith in God. The pressure that is upon us 
ci'owds us to questioning but not to infidelity. Is 
there any light discernible on the cloud ? Is there 
any lesson of counsel or comfort to be learned 
from this strange and awful dispensation of Divine 
Providence ? 

It has certainly evidenced in the most positive 
and impressive manner tJic stahility of Repablican 
institutions. Much as we loved our President, we 
love our country more, and anything that 
strengthens our faith in its permanency and pros- 
perity is so far a blessing. The impetuosity of 
our enterprise, and the splendor of our achieve- 
ments, sometimes causes us to forget that our 
nationality is still young. There are veteran 
statesmen on the continent who have not yet got 
through with talking about the " American exjperi- 
tnentP Both honest fears and idle sneers may be 
dismissed for the future. We are told that some- 
times on the sea, in the belt of the trade winds, 
the smiling days come and go, when the braces 
need no handling and the captain may sleep in his 
cabin, and the helmsman nod at the wheel, and 
yet there is such serenity in wave and sky that 
the ship is safe. But this great nation stretching 
from shore to shore of a continent, in a time of 
intensest excitement has been for weeks without 
an official head, and yet there has been neither 
convulsion nor apprension. The orderly processes 



22 

of justice have gone on after their quiet fashion, 
there have been no wild fluctuations in the money 
market, business has been shadowed with sadness 
but not smitten with paralysis, and the person and 
property of every man have been as secure as in 
the most monotonous times. It is a surprising 
spectacle unparallelled in the annals of history. If 
the President had lived, his wise administration 
would doubtless have strengthened the govern- 
ment, but his death with its attendant circumstan- 
ces has shown the people as nothing else could, 
what pith and vigor there is in the fibre of our 
institutions, and so lays on them a fresh responsi- 
bility to keep sacred and defend from all harm the 
ordinances and methods inherited from the fathers. 
And how can we ever thank God for such an 
illustrious examjde of a rioUe life — that suffered 
no tarnish but I'ather grew more resplendent in 
the damps of death. In a hot age like this when 
the masses go with the tide, or jump at conclu- 
sions if they think at all, there is nothing that is 
more wanted than symmetrical, healthy ideals of 
manhood impressive enough to inspire the multi- 
tudes with the desire and purpose to strive for 
them. It is not flattery or idle eulogy to say that 
our dead President was a conspicuous example of 
what a man should be. Born and cradled in pov- 
erty, necessity drove him to the work that later he 
learned to love. Ambitious to fill an honorable 
place in the world, he rose above the depression 
of his circumstances, and subsidized all the forces 
within his reach that would helj) him to his end. 



23 

He was not disdainful of humble toil. If fortune 
had not given him wings with which to soar to 
the greatness to which he aspired, courage and 
patience could build a ladder by which he might 
climb to the summit of his hopes. So we see him 
in his earlier days doing with his might what his 
hands found to do, not restless in his depressing 
surroundings, but "faithful in that which was 
least," so fitting under the slow burnish of trial to 
be "faithful in that which is greatest" when the 
appointed time should come, as come it surely 
does at last to all heroic souls. What lofty enthu- 
siasms were nursed in secret during those initial 
years, what stamina of character was compacted 
by those eai-ly hardships, what fortitude was born 
and bred in him by that homely cabin life, we can 
only compute by noting how these high excel- 
• lencies break out into radiance in the maturity of 
his manhood. In his case the old saying was 
eminently verified, " The child is father of the 
man." 

Cured of the reckless fancies of his boyhood, 
that prompted him to follow the roving life of a 
sailor, he settled himself in the quieter paths of 
learning. The first taste of the sweets of knowl- 
edge in an humble Western institution, inspired 
this man, who from first to last believed in thor- 
oughness, with a desire for broader culture, such 
as Eastern colleges afforded. All honor to Mark 
Hopkins, on whose white hairs so many other 
honors cluster, that his kindly heart prompted him 
to send words of welcome to the stranger boy, that 



24 

brought him to Massachusetts to receive in our 
own Commonwealth that liberal education of 
which he afterward made such splendid use. 
WilHams College drilled him and armed him for 
his grand career. At twenty-five he was a Pro- 
fessor of wide repute in the West, and a little 
later the President of the institution where he 
began his work as a student. His prospect of 
eminence in the ranks of scholars w^as fair before 
him, but the common gravitation of able men in 
America towards public life drew him out of the 
quiet retreat of learning into the turbulent arena 
of politics. An acknowledged leader in the 
Senate of his state, he laid down his civic honors 
at the opening of the rebellion for the ruder expe- 
riences of the camp and battle. From the rank of 
Colonel to that of Major-General was an interval 
which he speedily crossed, and his strategic skill • 
and brave demeanor in the last field on which he 
fought, gave him a place among the most eminent 
of military commanders. 

In the wise ordinance of God, his ultimate fame 
and highest honors were not to be won by well 
directed cannon or victorious charges. The Com- 
monwealth that knew him and trusted him, elected 
him as its representative in the councils of the 
nation. His great proto-martyr, President Lin- 
coln, urged him to come to his aid in the hour of 
perplexity and peril, and he could not resist the 
call of duty which seemed to him always as the 
voice of God. From that hour onward his path 
has been as open as the noon day. What he was 



25 



and did has been known and read of all men. He 
had no selfish ends to serve, no subtleties of 
mean trickery to hide, no jugglery of partisanship 
to conceal, no purpose which he was not willing to 
hold up in the clear white light of day and let the 
world look at it. Political bitterness, often too 
wickedly unscrupulous, has tried at times to dis- 
credit the roundness and solidity of his character, 
but the asserted facts have bleached out into fan- 
cies, under the test of investigation, and the 
severest accusations have evaporated into the 
smoke of partisan rumor. Judged by any fair 
standards, no public man stands before the world 
with a cleaner record, than the man whose loss 
the world mourns. And so at last without cau- 
cusing or contriving on his part, he became the 
elect head of the nation. The po])ular instincts 
that recognized his fitness for the Presidency, and 
the popuhu' suff"rage that bestowed that high 
oflHcc upon him, were not in fault. As has 
recently been so well said of him: " He had 
occupied the position only a short time, but al- 
ready he had impressed his character upon the 
administration in such a way as to cause good 
men to hope, and bad men to fear. Notwith- 
standing his long and conspicuous public ser- 
vices, his character had by no means been fully 
known and appreciated. It has been during the 
past bitter and sorrowful weeks that he has come 
to be understood, and, it may be said, that he has 
lived his best life and made his best history. Dur- 
ing his short life he has fought successfully nearly 
4 



26 

all the battles that are to be met with in this 
world. Poverty, danger, slander, temptation in 
its most allnring foi-ms, he has met and van- 
quished always. But his greatest battle he has 
fought last, looking calmly and fearlessly into the 
eyes of death, and keeping him at bay until it 
seemed more than once that his strong will would 
conquer all. 

Some words of his own are peculiarly applica- 
ble to himself : ' If there be one thing upon the 
earth that mankind love and admire better than 
another, it is a brave man, it is a man who dares 
to look the devil in the fice and tell him he is a 
devil.' He has looked both death and the devil 
in the face, until the latter fled away, and the for- 
mer has little of which to boast. He is dead, we 
say, but there are few w^ho live as he does, and as 
he will forever. For weeks he has been a sacred 
thing, lifting humanity upward as no being except 
the Christ has ever done before. Such he will 
remain — above the touch of partisan defilement, 
an inspiration and a priceless heritage." 

He was gifted with that rare, fine something 
w^iich made men who had never seen him his per- 
sonal friends. It is not the Presideiit w^hom w^e 
mourn to-day, so much as the man. Presidents 
can be had in an}- number for the asking; me7i, to 
whom hearts cleave, are not so plentiful. There 
is a shadow on all our hearthstones, and a sorrow 
in all our souls, not because we have exchanged 
one ruler for another, but because he w^hom we 
loved is dead. There is a sense of ijersonal loss 



27 

that cannot be shaken off. Men of the most oppo- 
site party affiliations hang the portrait of the dead 
President in their windows and drape aronnd it 
the emblems of sorrow. It is not our titular 
magistrate, but our " King Arthur " for whom Ave 
mourn, in our loj^alty to whom affection and 
pati'iotism were so blended that it is hard to tell 
which was the thickest strand. It is this some- 
thing in character, which more than all else distin- 
guishes the born ruler. It is such gracious author- 
ity, such winning sovereignty, that submission to 
its leadership is a delight, and revolt from its claims 
is unnatural. And this intangible, undefinable 
but emphatically real something in the dead Presi- 
dent, which so attached men to him, was not 
provincial in its scope. Its influence was not 
arrested and dissolved by the foam of the Eastern 
and Western oceans that wash the shores of our 
continent. When the Queen of Great Britain — 
God bless her for the kindliness of her woman- 
hood and her measureless sympathy — when the 
Queen of Great Britain makes the lightning her 
right hand and stretches it across the sea to lay a 
wreath of blossoms on the President's coffin, no 
more significant tribute could be paid to his native 
right to authority and allegiance. We do well to 
pause in our mourning and offer thanks to God, 
for an event that proves so clearly that, for a little 
while, a man in the best sense of the word has 
been given us to rule over us. The fact will stand 
forever, starred and radian^; in our history, that 
one of the world's elect has been sent us to sit in 
the high places of our national authority. 



28 

We should g-rossly misread the record if we 
failed to note that religious character, more than 
native strength or cultured ability, was the secret 
of the brilliant recoi'd on this brief, bright page of 
our history. Faith in God and a vivid conscious- 
ness of responsibility to him, underlaid the great 
successes of this man's life. It is a lesson which 
this people greatly needs to learn— a lesson for 
which even universal sorrow is not too costly a 
tuition fee to pay. The claims of God, recognized 
and revei-ed in private conduct, in social life, in 
the administration of government, this attitude of 
soul is the omnipotent factor of success. Rank, 
wealth, eloquence, statesmanship, what do they 
all amount to in the final issue ? " Hitch your 
wagon to a star," Mr. Emerson once said, if you 
wish to be drawn to the goal of your hopes. Tie 
your soul to God, is the simpler and surer formula 
for securing prosj^erity. It is well that this great 
man has both lived and died that the people may 
learn how true that is. He is an illustrious exam- 
ple of the fact that piety sometimes gains the 
prize which political dexterity misses. His career 
is a most impressive sermon on the profit of godli- 
ness. He did not burrow for office after the mole- 
like fashion of professional politicians, his soul 
was not up for sale to the highest bidder in caucus 
and convention; he did not make capital of emer- 
gencies to serve personal ends; he would not 
prostitute his conscience though ever so great 
price might be offered for the moral harlotry; he 
cared for God, and so God took care of him. His 



29 

death in the fulhiess of his fame, with all its shad- 
ows has its side of blessing, since it so emphati- 
cally preaches to the nation of the value of 
faith and obedience and a consecrated life. 
This is the largest, truest teaching of our ca- 
lamity. It will be well for the nation if it rec- 
ognizes it, accepts it, acts upon it. Let the 
benign influence of that conviction impress itself 
upon our laws and institutions; let it be fixed as 
the centre of crystallization, about which the 
discordant elements in the remoter territories are 
to aggregate themselves in the building up of the 
state; let it spur statesmanship to make its su- 
preme endeavors along the lines of righteousness ; 
let it rebuke with its serene and sovereign majest}^ 
the partisan and private scramble for place and 
power, and substitute for greedy and selfish pur- 
poses the ambition to deserve well of God, and in 
no far future looking with wiser eyes on this sor- 
row that to-day seems shrouded in such impene- 
trable blackness, and looking to God, by whose 
permission it comes, the chastened heart of the 
people will be able to say out of ripened experi- 
ence, " Clouds and darkness are round about him, 
but righteousness and judgment are the habitation 
of his throne." 

It will be something more than strange also, if 
out of this rupture of our plans, and this disap- 
pointment of our hopes, a better compacted and 
more enduring nationality fails to come. In a 
Republic opposing parties are inevitable. Sympa- 
thetic shades of thought will of necessity associate 



30 

themselves together, and their colors be fixed in 
organization to aid what is considered the wisest 
governmental policy. In the nature of the case 
all men cannot agree upon political theories and 
methods, and so are sure to arra}^ themselves 
against each other and try the issue with argu- 
ments and votes. But this may be done without 
acid criticism and cruel strictures of each others' 
motives and purposes. The libertinism of what 
is called free speech, during a political canvass, 
has been an amazing feature in American history. 
Men seem to have forgotten that assassination of 
character by false charges, is as murderous as the 
thrust of the knife or the stroke of the bullet. In 
this hour of common soi'row we are not in the 
mood of recrimination; no party berates its oppo- 
nents with hcU'd names, no section accuses the 
others of treason. Is it too much to hope that 
men who have wept and prayed together in the 
Gethsemane of a mutual affliction will have learned 
each others hearts so well as to be soaring in the 
future of ungenerous taunts and campaign false- 
hoods ? The President will not have died in vain, 
if over his grave men learn to discuss their politi- 
cal differences without personal malignity, and 
parties pleading for power before the high court of 
the people, be content to win or lose the verdict 
as the worse or better reason shall be judged to 
be on their side. You have seen on a summer 
afternoon the black and threatening cloud over- 
spread the sky, and under its shadow all was hush 
and darkness, but when the cloud had emptied 



31 

itself of its lightnings and poured its floods 
upon the earth, each dry and withered thing which 
had drooped in the blazing heat w^as quickened 
into freshness and beauty, the petals of the blos- 
soms glossed themselves with finer color and their 
breath of fragrance drifted through the air, and 
the cloud itself, its fury spent, and its blackness 
transfigured in the sunset light, became a canopy of 
purple and scarlet, that roofed with its splendor, a 
renewed and rejoicing eai'th. It may be, God 
send that it prove to be, that this cloud hanging 
vast and portentous over the nation's head to-day, 
has ah'eady spent its wildest rage, and that the 
calm after the storm is at hand, when the forsaken 
fiiults and chastened character and firmer welded 
loyal t}^ of the people shall dower the nation 
with new dignity and strength, and the calamity 
itself so crushing in its onset, seen through the 
perspective of time and in the light of what it has 
accomplished, shall be recognized as an illuminated 
page, unrolled by God's hand that he might write 
on it the fullest message of love and instruction, 
wdiicli he has ever sent to this favored people. 

And so as w^e look up into the face of God to- 
day and say "Clouds and darkness are round 
about him," we are to remember that they ai-e 
about Him, the great source and centre of the 
world's light and joy. The shadoAvs that enrap 
him are fleeting, the sunshine of his presence is 
eternal. His power controls and his wisdom 
guides. His purposes concerning this nation have 
suflered no sudden, unexpected shock. They will 



32 

move on in unruffled serenity to their fulfilm'^nt. 
Afloat on their mighty tide, this afflicted people 
will be borne to the provided and prepared haven. 
Even the shadows are in part the making of our 
own weakness. 

"We see but dimly through the fogs and vapors 

Amid these earthly damps: 
What seem to us, but sad, funereal tapers 

May be heaveu's distant lamps." 

Brush away the tears of grief and distrust and 
fear, and to our kindled and quickened vision at 
this sori'owful " even time it shall be light." 

We give one more day after this memorable 
Sabbath to sad and solemn ceremonial in honor of 
our illustrious dead, and then we are to take up 
again our march of service and duty. We are to 
away with faint heartedness. Righteousness and 
justice are the habitatiou of the throne of Him who 
holds us in the hollow of his hand. With chast- 
ened pride but unquestioning faith the nation is to 
move on along the historic course, that stretches 
bi'oad and clear before it. All will be well if as 
we go, our aims are unselfish, our purposes pure, 
our fidelity unwearied, and the lips of all the peo- 
ple move with the utterance of the prayer that 
belts with the simplicity and fervor of its ftiitb, the 
seal of the metropolis of this ancient and honored 
Commonwealth, a prayer on which lies the light 
of two worlds "As God was with our fathers, so 
may he be with us." 



